


Promises to Keep

by PrairieDawn



Series: Miles to Go Before I Sleep [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Prehistoric Park
Genre: Because that's what tweens do best, Gen, Gratuitous swamps, Kid Fic, Minor Character Deaths, Original Companion with Special Gifts category, Prehistoric Park shows up in Chapter 3, Really large insects, Revised FF.net repost, Telepathy, Winter storm warning, kittens!, sulking tween
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2019-01-30 10:37:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12651912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrairieDawn/pseuds/PrairieDawn
Summary: Middle Grade type story (a little younger than YA).  The Doctor more or less involuntarily becomes the guardian and tutor of a child with telepathic abilities.  My attempt to keep the Doctor from having to fend off the advances of his companions by saddling him with someone too young for that kind of relationship.  Also because I really needed a Doctor Who MG.  Who doesn't?For my Ika Musume, as she approaches the OC's age.Set between "Runaway Bride" and "Smith and Jones"





	1. Reprieve

**Author's Note:**

> This is a restructure of an older piece I'm planning to add additional material to.

All the Doctor wanted was to get into some dry clothes and drink some very hot tea. He squelched his way down Apple Street, looking for the house with the big burr oak poking up out of the back garden. Right there. He sped up to a jog, water squishing out of his trainers with each step, slipped through the open gate and into the back yard. Trotting up to to the TARDIS, he pulled out his key and stopped. A small leg, dressed in embroidered blue jeans, purple striped socks, and painted canvas sneakers hung down in front of the door to the TARDIS.

"Oi!" he said, startled, then looked up.

There was a little cry, and the leg abruptly vanished. The Doctor looked up. A slight girl with dark brown hair cut to chin length around a thin face was perched on top of the TARDIS. A paperback book slipped from her fingers and tumbled to the ground at his feet. Her eyes met his for only an instant before she shied away, apparently fascinated with her own toes.

Slowly, not taking his eyes off the child, he reached down to pick up the book. "Hello up there!" he said. "Mind telling me what you're doing on my box? No, silly question, obviously you were reading, the appropriate question is why?" He flashed his most winning smile.

The girl pointedly did not look up. "Why what?"

"Well." He took a step back and looked the girl over again. Not thin, he corrected himself. The skin was pulled too tight across the bones, the face a bit too pinched to be healthy. "Well," he started again, "I suppose I could ask you what you think of," he pulled out his glasses, "A Wrinkle in Time. Oh that’s a good one."  
She kept her eyes fixed on her feet. "I like books where what kids do matters. To the whole world. People usually have to grow up before they matter.”

“Everybody matters,” the Doctor contradicted almost automatically. "But why are you sitting on my box?"

"It's quiet up here. Why is your box sitting in my yard?" She kept stealing glances at him, then snapping her eyes away as if she expected his gaze to burn.

"Good question," he conceded. "Would you mind coming down from there, or at least looking at me? It's rather awkward having a conversation with the side of your head."

The girl crossed her legs and turned her body to face the Doctor, but spared him only the briefest glance before fixing her gaze disconcertingly off into middle distance. "I can't come down unless you leave."

"Why ever not?"

The girl chewed her lip. "It's complicated."

"Try me."

A screen door clicked shut. He looked around. A woman with dark hair and a worried expression was running toward him. She stopped a few feet away, looked from the child, to the TARDIS, then to the Doctor. "Excuse me, but is that...object...yours?" she asked.

"Oh, ah, yes," he said. "Getting to that." He paused, then gestured toward the child's perch with his chin. "Yours?"

"My daughter. Alex."

"Alex was just about to inform me why she is incapable of getting down off my box, when she was clearly perfectly capable of getting up onto it. How did you manage that, by the way?"

Swung down from the tree," Alex told a space a meter to the left of the Doctor. "When I climbed up, I was alone. Now you're here. And Mom." She flicked another of those microsecond glances from the Doctor, to her mother, and back to her favorite spot of air, stretched her lips into a tight, brief smile, then said, "I get motion sick around people. It's a neuropsychiatric disorder."

The Doctor scrubbed at his hair. "All right then, your mother and I will just head off over there and you can get down. Will that do?"

Alex shrugged her skinny shoulders. "I guess."

The Doctor strode off to a corner of the yard. After a beat, the girl's mother followed. "Who are you?" she demanded, then added unnecessarily, "You're soaking wet!"

"You noticed." He patted his own sleeve absently. "I'm the Doctor."

"Yeah, well, me too. Doctor Marie Caron, family practice. My office is on the first floor."

"So." He ran his hand through his hair again. If he could get her talking about the kid, she wouldn't ask difficult questions about him. "Your daughter is quite bright."  
Dr. Caron nodded. "She's a sharp kid." She stole a glance over his shoulder in the direction of his Tardis, chewing her lip anxiously.

"She's not well, is she?"

The woman shook her head. "Disintegrative synesthesia," she said. Her voice tightened, but she controlled herself, put on a forced smile. "It's a newer diagnostic category.

Are you familiar with it?"

"Not my subspecialty, I'm afraid," he evaded.

"She's stage two right now. She has complex multisensory hallucinations pretty much continuously. She’s had several seizures. It took her almost two days to recover from the last one. Next time, she may not wake up at all." She rubbed the back of her neck absently. "Could be today, tomorrow, next week..." Her hand dropped back to her side as she looked from the Doctor, to her daughter, and back. "Sorry. TMI, right?"

Alex interrupted their conversation with a shout. "All right, I'm off your precious box, happy?"

"Delighted!" The Doctor gestured to Dr. Caron to follow him, then jogged back toward Alex, stopping about two meters away. The girl had settled to the ground with her back against the TARDIS' double doors. "I'm the Doctor, by the way."

Alex's face paled. "Mom, I told you. I've had enough of doctors!" She stood up unsteadily. "Nice to meet you and all. Sorry you had to come all this way. Mom shouldn't have called you, whoever you are." She stumbled a few steps away from the two of them, arms held out for balance. It really was quite disconcerting, the way she avoided looking at either one of them. As the child stepped out of the psychic shadow of the TARDIS, her own field flared, brilliant and uncontrolled. Right. Of course. The Doctor adjusted his mental barriers in response.

Dr. Caron shot the Doctor a sharp look, then turned back to her daughter. "I didn't call him, Alexandra."

Alex paused and spared him another glance, a long one for her, almost a second. "Doctors don't usually make house calls," she mused. "Doctors don't bring giant blue..things...to house calls, ever." She peered up at him again, then back at her toes. "What did you do, fall in the lake?"

"Nennhalli. Sea monster."

"Don't patronize me."

"I'm not. Really."

Dr. Caron interrupted, "Let's get you into some dry clothes. It's a nice enough day, but the wind has to be blowing right through you, wet as you are. Come on, you don't want to catch pneumonia."

"I'm almost home," he protested weakly.

She reached for his arm, but stopped herself, crossing her arms instead across her chest. "Please."

Against his better judgement, he allowed himself to be led into the house. Shouldn't have stuck his nose in, with all those questions. Besides, he was curious. Alex retrieved her book, patted the TARDIS affectionately, and followed them in.

A fresh set of slightly too large clothes borrowed from Alex's father's closet and a couple of cups of hot tea later, the Doctor found himself ensconced in an overstuffed couch, wrapped in a brightly colored afghan. Dr. Caron had settled herself in a battered yellow armchair by the door to the living room. Alex was curled up in another particularly squishy armchair, toying with a couple of shortbread cookies and occasionally taking a swig of some protein drink and grimacing.

"I have some questions I'd like to ask you, if you don't mind," he said to the little girl. "Would you please look at me?" He really shouldn't get involved, but he couldn't just leave. Not anymore. This had the feel of a fixed point, and not the more common kind in which he could watch but was helpless to interfere. It felt like he was supposed to be here.

She shook her head. "I'm sorry. I know it's rude," she said to the spider plant on the end table.

The Doctor gave that particular battle up for lost. "How long have you been ill?"

"Three months. Gets worse all the time."

"What kinds of things do you see? Ghosts? Monsters?" It would have to be monsters, wouldn't it? Not Gelf. Please not Gelf.

Alex addressed the spider plant. "Just lights, and voices....around people. They hurt if I pay attention to them them for too long. Or even if I don't. There's a quiet space around your box. That's why I climbed up there." She paused. "If my mom didn't call you, why are you here? What kind of doctor are you anyway?" She tried another look at him, shied away.

"Oh I'm here completely by accident. Which generally means I'm exactly where the universe wants me to be. What else?"

"I sort of feel like I'm falling toward people all the time, like...how much do you know about gravity and space and stuff?"

"Oh I know a bit," he allowed. "Go on."

"Well, it's kind of like I have a gravity well, like a planet. And so does everyone else. Anyway, that's why I fall down. It's like when you're walking along and you think there's a step down, but there's not, so your foot hits the ground at the wrong time."

"I know what you mean. Any hypotheses as to the cause?"

She twisted her lips, thinking. "Nothing official. I'm just crazy, that's all."

"But what do you think?"

Alex shrugged. "People’s brains are wired to pay attention to patterns related to people. Like how we see faces in clouds and pieces of toast. Somehow, in kids with disintegrative synesthesia, that part of brain goes wrong, and starts to mess up everything else your brain does. It convinces you that you’re seeing and hearing things that aren’t really there.”

"Well, I suppose there’s some right in there, mixed up with the rest of it, I mean, obviously cloud face people are real and they get quite annoyed if you imply otherwise to their, ah, faces, but,” the Doctor allowed. “Is that really what you think is happening?”

"I'm trying to keep my reality testing intact,” Alex said in a small, uncertain voice.  
Reality testing? Twenty first century psychobabble. “Do the things you see, and hear, and feel give you information that you wouldn’t have otherwise?”

Alex shrugged. “Sometimes it seems like it, but that has to be wrong. It just seems like I know things I shouldn’t. About what people are thinking and feeling,” she stole a glance at her mother, “I’m just taking what I know about people around me already and making lucky guesses.”

"All right, keeping with that planetary motion metaphor, you're thinking like Copernicus. What would Galileo say?"

"About what?"

"About unorthodox theories of planetary motion. Do you know that story? About Galileo, the sun centered solar system, and the Inquisition?"  
Alex held his gaze for a heartbeat, her lip pressed between her teeth. The Doctor found he had to make an effort not to fall right into those large brown eyes. "I saw that on Cosmos!” she said. Then, after a pause and very quietly, “and yet it does move.”

The Doctor bounded out of his chair. "Eppur si muove! I could hug you right now...but I won't, don't worry." He tempered his enthusiasm. Mustn't spook the mother while she could still throw him out. "Dr. Caron, what do you think?"

She smiled tightly. "I..." She shrugged. "I'm sorry, Alex, I've known for, oh, a month at least."

"Wha!?" The Doctor stared. Not the response he'd expected. Did he have the year wrong? A decade one way or the other would make a difference.

"You answer questions I haven't asked you. I get a weird feeling at the base of my skull when you're nearby, kind of like when the air pressure changes suddenly on the Ell."  
Alex gaped. "Why didn't you say something, Mom?"

"I don't know." She deflated, sinking farther into her chair. "I didn't want to say it aloud. It's a bit woo. Like all the hysteria about aliens in England this last few years." The washing machine buzzed. "I'll get that." She hurried off. "Behave. Both of you."

 

Alex nibbled her cookie. "So, you're an alien, aren't you?"

"How did you guess?"

"That thing in the back yard. Besides, you don't look like other people. I mean the other kind of looking. You fill the whole room, but you're sort of flat. A bright light and … music without words." She scrubbed at her face with both hands. "Can you hear what I'm thinking?"

"No. I'm blocking you. Along with everyone else in about a five hundred meter radius."

Dr. Caron popped her head back around the doorway. "Doctor, help me in the kitchen for a moment."

"Excuse me," the Doctor nodded to Alex and followed Dr. Caron to the kitchen.

 

"Can you help her?" Dr. Caron asked without preamble, as soon as the kitchen door closed behind them.

He leaned casually against the kitchen counter, studying her. "What makes you think I can?"

”You feel strange too. A bit. I noticed when we were talking in the yard." She fished around in the fridge, pulled out a head of broccoli and a block of cheese. "Can you help her?"

"Not sure. I'd have to get a better look at how much damage is already done. If it's just a matter of teaching, probably. Not the sort of thing that can be done in an afternoon, though." He was half talking to himself.

She made a wry sort of face. "I take it you're not local, then."

"Not by a long shot."

"Go get your better look then, while I put together some lunch. If it's not too much trouble, I mean." She turned away, ducking into a lower cabinet to pull out a handful of potatoes. "I'm getting out of your way, so go." She set down the potatoes with trembling hands, then gripped the edge of the countertop to still them.

He rested one hand on her shoulder. "If I can't help her, I'll find someone who can. Back in a bit."

Alex was still curled in her chair, pretending to read her book. "Done conspiring with my mother, are you?"

"I wouldn't call it conspiring exactly." He eased himself onto the couch, across from her. "I need to have a look. In your head. If that's all right?"

She bent forward, pressing her palms into her eyes. "It's going to hurt, isn't it. I mean, more than it does just you being in the room."

The doctor winced apologetically. "Aw, kid. It's not supposed to. Telepathy can be joyous, profound, silly, terribly sad, other stuff you are definitely not old enough to worry about, but it's not supposed to hurt."

"But it's going to."

He shrugged. "Yeah."

"Thanks for not lying to me. Adults lie a lot, especially when you're dying. It makes them feel better." She smiled, her first genuine smile. "I'm a tough little girl. I can handle it."

"Was that a Miyazaki reference?"

"Yeah." She closed her book, then carefully set it on the endtable. "Sorry in advance if I barf on you. I have a history." She looked up from her hands, folded tightly in her lap, and met his eyes.

The Doctor smirked. "Then it's a good thing these aren't my clothes." He brushed aside her hair, already falling.

Pain flooded his mind. He fought to think clearly through it while shifting into the girl's thought patterns, which were rapidly losing coherence. "Stay with me, Alex," he urged, holding them both still until the contact stabilized and he could relieve some of the pain, help her stay oriented. "Sorry," he told her. "It's a real mess in here. Let's see..." Her basic personality seemed to be intact under the frayed and fraying connections, but it was a close thing. Three months. At least two of those completely undefended against every emotion, every stray thought, every accidental touch. Days spent fighting her way out of chaos, when her mind broke under the strain. Fortunately, humans were remarkably resilient. A bit of education, a bit of time, most of the damage would fix itself.

"You really been all those places? Done all those things?"

"Oi, quit with the sightseeing. Now, I'd rather have a specialist patch you up a bit." But to do that, he'd have to take her elsewhere. Or elsewhen. She reminded him so much of Adric already. Too young to put at so much risk. "Right, one quick lesson, you up to it?" He couldn't leave her completely undefended.

"Yeah. Who is Adric?" She ought to be curled in a ball, gibbering. Instead, the girl was asking impertinent questions. He was really beginning to like this kid.

"Pay attention. This is a basic shield. Won't be very strong until you practice with it, but anything's better than running around with your consciousness hanging out all over the place."

She hesitated, then copied the pattern he presented to her. "Like that?"

He tested the barrier gingerly. "Not bad, for a first try. You're quite the mimic."

"Thanks."

"You need to sleep. Now." he waited for her to succumb to his suggestion, then broke contact. She flopped over in her chair. He tucked the brightly colored afghan around her.

He looked around. Dr. Caron was watching from the doorway. "You know," she said, "You're the first person I've met who's as smart as she is. It's good that you don't talk down to her."

"I was talking?"

Shouting. Out front, on the street. The Doctor flicked the front curtains open, peered out. "Torchwood. Followed me here...under whose orders, I wonder?"

"Torchwood?"

"Never mind that. They're looking for me, but they're likely to pick up Alex as an aside. They've got psychic field detectors. Alien technology. Good people, you understand, most of them, but she's too fragile. Just riding out to Fermilab--I think their regional base is at Fermilab--in a van full of agents could put her over the edge. Americans." He looked down at the girl, still sleeping on the couch.

Her mother ran to a hall closet, reappearing with a stuffed purple backpack. "Bugout bag. Disaster readiness, you know. Alex, wake up, quick!" Alex did not respond.

"You have to go. Now." Dr. Caron reached around the Doctor and snatched up Alex's book to stuff it into the outer mesh pocket of the backpack. She shoved the bag into the Doctor's arms. "Alexandra, get up!" she shouted. “What did you do? Why won’t she wake up?”

The Doctor stood in the middle of the living room, arms full of backpack. He slung it over his shoulder quickly, bent down, and touched the child's forehead. "Wake up, you've got to run. Now!" Alex's eyes fluttered open. The Doctor hauled her to her feet.

Dr. Caron bustled them toward the back door. "Why are they looking for you?"

"It was only a little sea monster. It needed a place to stay. Lake Superior is plenty big enough..."

As they reached the TARDIS, he tried another protest. "I live a very dangerous life. I can't guarantee her safety."

She smiled, a little sadly. "Like I can? I trust you more than I trust them."

Alex caught up with them. "There are soldiers next door."

Dr. Caron reached out a hand, as if to pull her daughter into her arms, but stopped herself at the last moment. "I'm trusting you with half of my heart. Take care of her. Bring her back when you can. If you can."

The Doctor opened the door of his TARDIS. Alex ducked under his arm and inside, preempting any further protests.

"I wish I could have kissed her goodbye," Dr. Caron said, then turned away, running back toward the house. "I'll stall them."

The Doctor closed the door and locked it, then ran to the console, flipping switches. The TARDIS groaned, shuddered, and took flight. He turned around. Alex was sitting crosslegged on the floor with her back against a wall, eyes closed. "You all right, then?" he asked.

"I miss them already."

The TARDIS stopped whirring. The Doctor stepped over to the door and opened it with a grand gesture. "There's a lovely ring nebula out here, if you'd like to have a look?"  
Alex crept up behind him to peer out the doorway. "I like your spaceship, by the way."

"It's called the TARDIS. Travels in time, too."

He'd been a Dad once. He tried remember just the right tone. "I'll show you the kitchen. You get that shield stable. Really stable, and gain about, say, four kilos, and I'll let you go outside. Until then, only what you can see from the door."


	2. Ember

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor's charge, confined to the TARDIS, decides to go exploring.
> 
> Also kittens.

She'd been staying with the Doctor for a week--she thought--the first days were a blur. He had taken her to a gray and sweetly scented place where she had mostly slept under the ministrations of beings she never saw clearly and barely remembered. She had awakened back in the TARDIS, in a room furnished for her use. The Doctor went about his business, and she tried not to bother him too much. She didn't have that much experience with adult men--to the extent that the Doctor fit either category, given that he was an alien, after all. Her Dad was on the introverted side, easily annoyed by his gregarious daughter--she had been gregarious once, a milion years ago--and she had learned to let him be unless he approached her first. So she'd mostly let the Doctor be.

She was a little afraid of him.

The TARDIS was OK. Lonely, but the last three months had given her an appreciation for lonely. She didn't feel sick all the time anymore, and the bruises on her arms and legs were gone now that she didn't fall down every few minutes. The throbbing behind her eyes that had been her constant companion for months had faded too, leaving her feeling lighter, as though her head were a helium balloon. She practiced shielding against the featureless brightness of the Doctor-he was the only standard candle she had to tell if the shield was working. He was always there, perceptible even through the interior walls of the ship, though muted by the ever present diffuse glow of the TARDIS itself. It talks to him, she thought. She wondered if it would ever talk to her.

She'd decorated her room with salvage from the TARDIS' astonishing number of closets, and found, wonder of wonders, a functioning internet connection. She had tried, just for fun, putting her own name into the search engine, but a pop up had informed her that the search term had been blocked to prevent "spoilers". Same with most of Earth's future history. In fact, about half of the sites and entries she'd looked up were blocked, even when she deliberately tried to avoid tripping the system. Frustrated, she had gone off in search of print, and had found what might be called a library or might be called a big pile of dusty books.

For the moment, she was sprawled across her bed with her latest find. Alex memorized her page number, then flipped to the front of the copy of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court she had been reading. It was a first edition, signed by the author. "To the Doctor, with gratitude. Sam." She left the book on the bed, feeling antsy. Today, she decided, she would see just how big the TARDIS was. She grabbed an over the shoulder bag and an electronic journal she'd found in a big box of identical such journals in a room mostly filled with boots, slipped her feet into her sneakers, and set off down the hallway.

Three hours later she was still encountering new rooms. She had found two more rooms not unlike the control room by the door, rooms full of equipment of uncertain function she chose to be smart enough not to touch, and rooms standing empty. And mice. Or at least, their pungent little nests and tiny black calling cards.

She was just beginning to entertain the possibility that the TARDIS was actually infinite in extent when she heard a sudden, scrabbling noise, unnaturally loud in the quiet hallway. Alex let out a little shriek, dropping the journal which clattered to the floor. The scrabbling returned for long moments, as though there were something scrambling behind the walls, then stopped.

It was too big to be a mouse.

Even if the Doctor knew where she was...wait a minute. If she always knew where he was, he must know where she was as well. Even so, he wouldn't be able to get to her quickly. Did he keep monsters in here? Sea monsters maybe, in one of the artificial ponds she'd seen an hour ago? Was it possible he'd neglected to mention other passengers on this ship of his, passengers who might have a taste for little girls?

It really was quite dark down here. She looked around for something she might be able to use as a weapon. This part of the TARDIS was full of clutter, stored in plastic crates, sea chests, cardboard boxes, and uncontained piles. There was a flat wooden thing on the floor. She picked it up. It was a bit heavy for her to swing easily, about the size of a baseball bat, but flattened, rather than rounded at the business end. A cricket bat? 

It wasn't a light saber, but it would have to do.

Alex stepped forward, slowly, picking her way between the boxes and piles. She stopped every four or five steps, held still, and listened for the sound. Rapid scuttling, the clicking of claws. To her right, in front of her...or was it over her head? And then down and to her left. The echoes in this place!

She took another few steps, heart pounding in her chest. The shadows around her twisted and moved in front of her. There was a loud hollow clatter in front of her and she jumped back, tripping over a crate of something that crackled like crepe and collapsed underneath her, jackknifing her knees to her chest so her feet stuck up in front of her face. She held up the bat in defense against...what?

It was silent again. Alex wriggled free of the crate and got to her knees. In front of her, half on the ground, half propped on an ancient leather chest, lay the sinuous form of a broken coat rack. She stifled a hysterical giggle. Something was still out there. An alive something.

She rested the cricket bat across her knees. The TARDIS wouldn't let anything dangerous live inside it, would it? Maybe the thing wasn't dangerous. Funny, she hadn't noticed any menacing great intelligence moving around her. There were no glowing holes in the fabric of her personal universe...but maybe, just a little thing. A little someone. It felt like a hunter. Felt like a knot of intention, afraid a little maybe, curious maybe, definitely...familiar.

The Doctor was closer now and on a different bearing. She ignored him for the present. What was that little thing..."Kitty? Here kitty kitty..." She set down the cricket bat. S'all right, kitty, I'm not a threat."

Too bad she didn't have any tuna on her. Not generally the sort of thing she tended to carry, exploring. She sat down crosslegged on the floor and tried to look uninterested. A warbled, "Mrow?" questioned from somewhere in front of her. She held still.

The tortoiseshell appeared by degrees, nose first, then a paw, then her long orange and charcoal body. It gingerly set a paw on her knee. She thought about that shield she was supposed to keep up, imagined its pattern into place, though she wasn't so sure she had to be that careful about a cat. The Doctor was very close now.

She looked around her, embarrassed by her predicament and the mess. The cat crawled onto her lap. She brushed foam peanuts out of her hair and arranged herself into a pose of innocent nonchalance. 

He rounded the corner, eyes still wide, breathing still a little fast. He had run. He'd run all the way here, just because she'd gotten scared by a cat and a coat rack. Alex put on her best innocent smile. "I like your cat. What's her name?"

He stared for a long moment, unblinking. "I have a cat?"

She scratched the cat around its ears, hoping it would stay a while. It had been so long since she'd held something warm and soft and alive. "So I take it she doesn't have a name."

The Doctor folded himself awkwardly so he fit beside her in the space between the boxes. "No, no name. She must have slipped into the TARDIS some time when the door was open."

"She needs a name, then." The cat's charcoal coat, shot with orange and a lighter gray, reminded her of the embers in a fireplace. "What do you think of Ember? For a name, I mean."

"I think it quite suits her." He smiled, belatedly. "What are you doing all the way down here?" It was another one of those attempts to sound parental. She ignored it. 

They were interrupted by the faint sound of squeaking in a box behind the Doctor. He turned, still seated, to push aside a faded blanket and look inside. "Oh, come look, Alex."

Alex scooped up Ember and shuffled over to the opposite side of the box. The cat squirmed free of her arms to watch the two of them warily, rubbing the full length of her body and tail around the box. Alex peered inside. Three kittens of the wobbly and wide eyed variety stared up at them, mewing. "They're so adorable," she said. "We probably should leave them be, though. They're pretty little."

"What is the mother eating?" The Doctor wondered aloud.

Alex stood to brush herself off. "Mice."

"I have mice too?" He didn't sound quite as thrilled as he had about the cat.

She made a face. "Yeah. I'm sorry I dragged you down here. I know you're probably really busy doing whatever it is you do. What do you do, anyway?" Do aliens have jobs?

He shrugged. "Travel in space and time. Save the world."

"Which world?"

"All of them." Tension stole back into his face, faint lines around the eyes and mouth. 

"That's a big job." She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly cold. "And all those worlds out there not getting saved because you have to babysit."

"It doesn't work like that. We're not quite in time right now. So far as I know, no worlds are ending because of you being here." 

Alex decided to change the subject. "Can I go outside yet?"

"Look at me," the Doctor said. She obeyed, pushing down a twinge of fear she hadn't been expecting, then feeling stupid about it. The was the briefest moment of pressure behind her eyes, so quick she wasn't sure she hadn't imagined it. "Shield looks... adequate. But there's not much opportunity to practice inside the TARDIS. How's your head?"

"Better I guess. I still forget the words for things sometimes. And I can't write neatly. My hands don't remember how to make the letters. But I don't hurt anymore."

"And are you eating?"

At the mention of food, she flipped open her bag and pulled out a pair of Twinkies. She laughed. "I'm always hungry now." She tossed him the bag after a couple of attempts to bite it open. "Apparently I don't remember how to open packages anymore either."

He examined the little yellow cakes dubiously. "I'm not sure these things qualify as food," he said, but he did tear the bag open and toss them back to her.

"I'm not either." She stuffed one in her mouth anyway. Once she'd gotten it down, she repeated, "So can I go outside?"

He instantly brightened, and she realized, all at once, that he had been feeling cooped up at least as much as she had. "Where would you like to go?"

"Oh another planet, definitely. The weirder the better."

"One weird planet, coming up!" And he was off so fast she had to run to keep up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meow.


	3. Quagmire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex and the Doctor run into Nigel Marven in the Carboniferous. Yes, this is a crossover with Prehistoric Park, set just before the Insects episode.

Alex felt herself being spun around and stretched, then dropped suddenly and sickeningly, then it all stopped and she found herself flat on her bottom on the metal mesh floor of the TARDIS. After a brief, fortunately victorious battle with her own stomach, she grabbed the TARDIS console and hauled herself to her feet. The Doctor closed the distance between them in two long strides, concern on his face.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," she insisted, waving him off. "Does it always feel like that?"

"Like what?

"Like being drunk."

"What do you know about being drunk? Oh, right, most humans don't notice. You get used to it." He peered into a laptop screen jury rigged to the control panel. "I'm sorry, it looks like we're still on Earth. 300 million years in your past, though. Want to try again for a weird planet?'

"No!" she said a little too quickly, then, "No. That's the Carboniferous, right? Dragonflies this big?" She stretched her arms out as far as they would go.

"The same." He looked at her expectantly, a goofy grin plastered across his face. 

"Cool," she allowed, not quite matching his level of enthusiasm.

"All right then." Was she imagining it, or did he look disappointed? "Some rules. No wandering off, no touching anything unless I say you can, and if I say run, you run. The TARDIS has its own agenda, and when it sends me somewhere I haven't intended to go, there's usually a reason."

She cocked her head at him. "A reason that involves running?"

The Doctor shrugged and threw open the door. Dense tropical forest lay before them, full of odd trees, some a little like palm trees, some like bottle brushes, some looking like nothing so much as really enormous pineapples. They were in the middle of a small clearing dominated by mosses and ferns, above which a buzzing crowd of impossibly big insects dipped and swooped. Trills and whistles filled the warm, humid air along with the rich smell of compost. "Well, come on then," the Doctor said, stepping outside.

She stepped out into the damp vegetation. Water pooled around her feet and soaked into her sneakers. A many legged thing as thick as her finger crawled over one damp foot and disappeared back into the undergrowth. She took a couple of steps away from the Tardis. Two slick, red salamanders basked on the trunk of one of the pineapple looking trees, bright as flowers against the dark, diamond scored bark. "Real flowers haven't evolved yet," she said, half to herself.

"Right you are," the Doctor confirmed. "What did you find,there?" He stepped up behind her to peer over her shoulder. "Did you know there are centipedes as big as...as big as cows out here somewhere?"

"I hope we don't smell like food," Alex replied.

The Doctor circled the little clearing again. "Something bothers me about this place, but I can't quite put my finger on it."

Alex scratched her head. "The clearing's a perfect circle. Is that weird?"

"Hmm, you have a point." He pulled out his screwdriver and waved it vaguely at the air, then tucked it back into his pocket with a puzzled expression. "We're not alone," the Doctor said.

"Yeah," Alex said, crouching down to look at a dragonfly the size of her head, bright and perfect as jewelry. "Bugs all over the place."

He shook his head, pointing to the sodden ground. A wiggly, geometric pattern was impressed into the mud, unmistakeable. Tire tracks. He put a finger to his lips, then made a stay back gesture. Alex leaned back against the TARDIS door. The Doctor took half a dozen steps forward, following the tracks, then gestured to Alex to follow. "The tread looks like human technology, twentieth or twenty first century. Goodyear, if I'm not mistaken."

Alex followed in his footsteps. The tracks led to a pond where the jeep that had produced them had foundered. Two people in khaki safari outfits, a tall, gangly man and a shorter, rounder woman, both liberally doused with mud, eyed the jeep ruefully, their backs to the Doctor and Alex.

"Bloody hell!" the woman said, ineffectually kicking the passenger side door of the jeep. "We'll never get it out. Not without a winch. You didn't bring a winch with you, did you?"

The tall man shook his head. "I didn't think I'd need a winch to take atmospheric samples." He sighed. "Well, might as well have a spot of tea and think about it. Something will come to me."

To Alex's surprise, the Doctor stepped right up to the jeep, smiling broadly. "Something always does." He slapped the man on the back with an odd cameraderie. "Nigel! I should have guessed it would be you. What on Earth brings you to the Carboniferous? No, seriously, what on Earth has the capacity to transport you to the Carboniferous?"

The man turned around, nonplussed, to stare at the Doctor, giving Alex her first glimpse of "Nigel's" face. Her hands flew up of their own accord to cover her spreading grin. Nigel Marven! A little wordless squeak of glee escaped her lips. She bounced on her toes.

Nigel extended a hand to the Doctor, who shook it, then tucked his own hands back into his coat pockets. "I'm afraid you have the advantage of me," Nigel said. Nigel Marven! Alex stifled a squeaky giggle. Fantastic!

"I'm the Doctor, Nigel." He managed to look both sad and terribly impressed with himself at the same time. 

Nigel shook his head. "You're not the Doctor. He's taller, and," Nigel mimed fluff on the top of his head, "Curly."

"I regenerated. Several times, actually. It's a Time Lord thing. How about that cup of tea? My place. I may even have a winch somewhere in there."

Alex recovered her wits enough to say, "Chased by Dinosaurs. That was supposed to be CGI."

Nigel appeared to notice Alex for the first time. "A fan, I see. We," here he indicated himself and the Doctor, "filmed those on a lark, then cut everything together and pixilated the wildlife a bit to make it look less authentic." He squelched toward her. She wobbled, torn between delight and panic as the ground seemed to tilt toward him. She pretended her mental shields with every ounce of conviction she could muster and prayed he wasn't a hugger.

The Doctor came to the rescue, stepping between them on the pretext of making introductions. "Oh, and this is Alex, my..." he paused a moment, at an apparent loss to describe their relationship.

"Project." Alex suggested, then dissolved into more giggles. 

The Doctor cast her a sharp look. "You have got to be kidding. Him? He's not even that good looking."

Alex let the two of them pass her, followed by the woman with the backpack. "Soggy sort of era, the Carboniferous," the Doctor remarked, "Didn't catch your name?"

"Lynn."

"Right. Lynn. Coming, Alex?"

She squished back toward the TARDIS, but hadn't quite caught up with them when an exasperated cry of, "Blast!" stopped her.

Lynn added, "I bloody hate bloody swamps."

She rounded the clump of vegetation that had been obscuring her view of the TARDIS. For a horrible moment she thought it had vanished, but then she saw the angular blue shape behind the three deflated adults. Lying on its side. She wondered if the whole ship would be sideways now, or whether the same Escher-like topography that allowed it to fit inside the box would also assure that it was right side up, regardless of the box's orientation. Why were the three of them standing there looking dejected, in that case?

She caught up with them, finally, and the cause of their consternation became clear. The TARDIS was not lying on its side. It was lying on its face in about a foot of muddy water. A number of words she wasn't supposed to use came to mind. She settled instead on, "Ouch."

The Doctor walked all the way around it, even taking out his sonic screwdriver thingy and waving it about again. Alex caught his puzzled expression before he pasted cheer over it and turned back to Nigel and Lynn. "Right, your place then."

They trudged back to the partially submerged jeep for the tea things. Lynn casually tossed an amphibian the size of a dog off of a large duffel bag in the back seat and hauled it over her shoulder. Nigel spread a waterproof tarp on a bit of relatively high ground. Lynn put together a camp stove just to the side of the tarp, while the Doctor arranged camp stools. Alex stood at the edge of the tarp, feeling useless and clumsy. After everyone had pulled up a chair, she sat down, crosslegged, on the tarp, not quite trusting the camp stools.

"There are four chairs," Nigel offered.

"I'm fine here." She pulled her own bag onto her lap to fish for some snacks, but Nigel and Lynn were well supplied with scones and jam, which looked appealing, and bread and marmite, which looked awful and smelled worse. The Doctor intercepted the tea and scones Nigel tried to pass to her, handing them off to her himself. "I'm not a complete cripple," she protested. Except she was kind of grateful.

"We found our time portal in a pocket universe linked to a spot in South Africa," Nigel explained. "UNIT supplied our portable field generators. We're building a sort of nature preserve. Extinct wildlife. You should see our pair of juvenile tyrannosaurs."

"And the animals stay in the pocket universe?"

Nigel attempted to appear shocked. "Of course, I'm not that stupid."

The Doctor shrugged. "Well, I won't say I like the idea, precisely, but humans mucking about in time is inevitable at this point. There ought to be an agency to regulate that sort of thing."

"They'd try to regulate you, too."

"Let them try," the Doctor remarked, grinning. 

Nigel gestured to Alex, still speaking to the Doctor. "So, did you run out of post pubescent companions?"

"I'm her guardian at present." The Doctor turned to Alex. "So, how would you suggest we solve our twin problems, the jeep and the TARDIS?"

Alex had the sudden, sinking feeling that she had landed in a practical math lesson. "That depends." She turned around to study the ship. "The TARDIS is small on the outside, but big on the inside. How big is it in there, really? Big as the Earth?"

"No."

"Big as Chicago?"

The Doctor had to pause. "I don't think so, anymore. Used to be. Do you have a point?"

Alex continued, "Where does it keep its mass? If its apparent mass is like a big wooden crate, we could use ropes and levers to move it. But the three of you aren't going to be able to move something with the mass of a city."

"Very good."

"So, which is it?" Alex prompted.

The Doctor's eyes twinkled. "I think you have enough information to figure that out."

She looked back over her shoulder at the prone timeship. "If it had the mass of a city, and the footprint of a box, it would have sunk further into the swamp. All the way to the bedrock, at least. Right?" Encouraged by the Doctor's nod, she continued, "So it can't be impossibly heavy. We could attach some ropes to it and pull it onto its side. What is its mass? I mean, practically."

"Two hundred forty kilos, roughly. What about the jeep?"

"We get inside the TARDIS and find the winch. Although," she paused. "We could just tie a rope to the back bumper and take off. Would the jeep go with us, just flapping along behind?" 

"Not my jeep, you don't," interrupted Lynn.

They were all interrupted, then, by a deep, irregular rumbling that shook the crumbs off their plates. "That sounded unnervingly geological," Lynn said. She started packing up the tea things, briskly, into a green Gore-Tex bag. Alex gathered the ones near her and set them in a pile next to the bag, careful not to accidentally touch anybody.

"No, it didn't," both Nigel and the Doctor said. The Doctor continued, "That sounded technological. Right, to work! Let's get the old girl flipped over. We are leaving."

"We just got here!" Alex protested.

"You know, ordinarily I would agree with you, but you are in no condition to investigate unknown technology. You can barely manage tea! It wouldn't be safe."

Alex protested, "If the world ends in the Carboniferous, I'll never evolve, and that wouldn't be safe either. You're supposed to be here. Do your job. I'll be okay." 

"We'll flip the TARDIS over, and you will wait inside."

"Fine," Alex bit off, then she sat on the tarp and watched Nigel, Lynn, and the Doctor rig ropes reinforced with duct tape around the TARDIS until she got bored, then watched the dragonflies divebomb some less familiar flying creatures until ditto, then the ground underneath her rumbled again, louder. This time she noticed the slightly metallic scree to the sound that must have alerted Nigel and the Doctor. The adults redoubled their efforts to right the TARDIS. Swearing was involved, mostly on the part of Lynn, who combined words Alex already knew into combinations she was sure she had never heard before.

Suddenly, she was aware of another sound. It was a tiny sound, a trickle like a leaking toilet. It grew a little louder, became a rivulet, water running over obstacles. The adults had not noticed, they were so intent on their work. The TARDIS had not yet budged, but there was a line of mud about two inches up on its side, like a high water mark. Where had the water gone? The sound grew louder. "Can you hear the water?" she said. Her voice came out small and uncertain.

She tried again. "Can you hear the water?" There was no answer. She stood up, ran over to where the Doctor and Nigel were discussing knots, and tumbled to the sodden ground when Nigel moved suddenly. "Doctor! Listen to the water!" she shouted.

The Doctor stopped. The sound grew in the seconds that he stood, listening. It was roaring now. The ground canted underneath them--really actually tilted, sending Nigel and Lynn rolling into the side of the Tardis. The Doctor stayed upright a bare moment longer. He snatched Alex up, tight against his body with one arm, then they, too, slid feet first toward the pit opening beneath them. She could feel his mind, an unbearable brilliance, for a split second before he damped himself down. Silent running, she thought, and wondered if the term was her own idea. Ahead, the Tardis tipped into the hole, followed by Nigel and Lynn.

"Take a breath and hold it!" he shouted over the roaring water, then they were over the side. They hung in midair for a sickening instant before slamming into turbulent, bathtub warm water. It was pitch black, but picked out in the darkness were the golden nimbus of the Tardis and two patches of swirling, refracted light that were Nigel and Lynn, both shot with fear-static. She could hear them shouting over the splashing and echoes.

"I can swim, get them!" she yelled, squirming clear of the Doctor's too tight grip. "They can't find the TARDIS on their own!" Once he released her, she swam a fast crawl over to the TARDIS, which, miracle of miracles, floated. The door would not open. She clung to the wooden slats, pulled along with the ship in the current. 

The Doctor led first, Lynn, then Nigel to the Tardis, then climbed on top. She wished she could see what he was doing, but he was just a big bright blob, she couldn't pick out limbs or anything. Nigel shouted, "The little girl, where's the little girl?"

"I'm over here! Stay over there." She racked her brain for a good excuse. "If we move, we'll tip it!" That even had the advantage of being true.

"I've got the door open. Alex, you first." He hauled her up by the arm. This time he remembered to go silent(ish) first. She tumbled into the TARDIS and was right side up, sitting on the floor. She couldn't even feel the motion of the ship bobbing in the water. The sudden change distracted her enough that she forgot to get out of the way of Nigel as he rolled into the TARDIS and right into her. The floor dropped out from under her and she was swallowed up in deafening color and brilliant noise. She couldn't breathe or think or find her legs to escape.

Words cut through the chaos. "All right, you over here." Hands under her shoulders, dragging her over to one wall. She rolled over, threw up, and started to cry in earnest. "Nigel, you all right?" the Doctor said, then turned his attention to Alex.

She turned her face away from him, ashamed. "Leave me alone," she whispered. 

The Doctor turned to Nigel and Lynn, but still kept looking over at her. He had that worried look she hated to see on her mother's face. Nigel was sitting on the floor with a handkerchief to his face. "She kicked me in the nose, I think," Nigel said, in that stuffed up voice people use when they're trying to stifle a nosebleed. 

"I hurt you," she said, disgusted with herself. Great, now that would be how he'd remember her. The stupid, clumsy girl who kicked him in the head and then bawled like a stupid baby. 

"Yeah, you kicked me in the nose. I've had worse," Nigel insisted. "I just want to know why you're so upset."

Alex tried to stand on wobbly legs. "I'm a monster." She headed for the rear of the control room, using the wall for support. "There's always a monster. I'm it." She stumbled to her room and slammed the door.


	4. Capture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nigel, Lynn, Alex and the Doctor arrive at an underwater agricultural facility where they are suspected of being involved in a a series of murders.

Alex sat crosslegged on her bed, her face mashed into a pillow she held on her lap. She'd changed into a dry sweatsuit from her backpack. Her wet clothes lay wadded where she'd dropped them. The Doctor knocked on her door. "Go away," she said into the pillow.

"I'm coming in." The Doctor opened the door, swung her desk chair around backwards, and straddled it. Silent running, she noticed, even though she'd have preferred not to.

"Is Nigel OK?" she muffled.

"He's fine, you didn't kick him that hard. How are you? Still dizzy?"

"No," she lied. "Did you tell him?"

"Did I tell him what?"

"About the, you know. About me."

He winced. "I'm sorry, I thought that if they understood the situation, we could avoid any more accidents."

She hugged her pillow, wishing Ember was around, but the cat had gone off on her own errands. "I want to be like everybody else. I want to go home," she said. "Just make it stop."

He had that look again, her dad's look, the one midway between exasperated and haggard. "I can't." 

"Bet you're lying." Her face was hot and stinging from tears.

"All right, I could, but I won't." He spread his hands out, a placating gesture. "You come by your talent honestly, just an accident of genes and environment. Taking away a part of who you are just because you don't like it would be wrong.”

She sniffled. "Are we still in the Carboniferous?" She wiped her eyes and nose on the pillowcase. Yeah, she thought, I'm a disgusting kid, live with it.

The Doctor nodded. "Bobbing along in an underground river, headed for parts unknown. Isn't it fun?" He grinned.

It would be if she could be somebody else while it was happening.

"We've stopped," he said, abruptly. "Can you tell?"

"No," she said, sarcasm creeping into her voice. 

"Well, we have. Come on, mysteries to be solved!" He bounced up from the chair and out the door, leaving it open behind him.

A small part of her wondered why he wasn't leaving her in the TARDIS, where it was safe, like he said he was going to. Unless he didn't think it was safe to leave her alone. What did he think she was going to do, break something in a fit of pique? She stood up, glad that he didn't see her have to clutch at the corner of the desk until she could stand without swaying. She left her soaked shoes and socks on the floor and followed him to the control room.

The Doctor peered into his laptop screen, flipped some switches, and hit a button. The TARDIS wheezed, but only for a second. "There now, dry land. Everyone out."

They headed out of the TARDIS, Alex fuming and barefoot beside the Doctor, the other two following. Nigel and Lynn turned on their flashlights. It smelled of dead fish and rotting vegetation. The ground was smooth and slightly concave, as though they were walking along the interior of a huge pipe. Alex trailed an arm along the wall for balance, so preoccupied with her indignation that she didn't see the very dead body until it was right in front of her. The first thing to cross her mind was a bitter amazement that she hadn't tripped over it first. It had four fat tentacles instead of legs, and four more slender ones instead of arms. All were encased in a multipocketed dark jumpsuit. It had no face that she could see, but that might have been normal for it. There was a lidded pail lying on the floor next to the body, with writing scratched on it in a script that looked simultaneously alien and English. Part of the writing was a name she couldn't begin to figure out how to pronounce, but the other part said, "This is not your food." Tools lay haphazardly about the body, where they had been dropped or flung.

"Kind of working class, for Cthulhu," Lynn remarked from behind her.

Alex found she couldn’t maintain the head of steam she’d been working on in the face of what she was seeing. She felt cold running from her chest, down to her arms and hands, which she balled into fists. "I've never seen a real dead person before," she said.

"Using person a bit loosely, aren't you?" Lynn said. "Count the legs."

Alex frowned and crossed her arms in front of her for warmth. If she was shaking, it was only because she was angry. Not scared. Not scared at all. "He wore clothes, he used tools, he could write. That ought to be enough."

The Doctor snatched the bucket up to examine, "And he...or she, or they, mind you, kept getting their lunch stolen by their coworkers." He didn't say it like it was funny, either, which was just as well, because it wasn't funny at all. 

Nigel squatted near the body to indicate a trowel covered with blood and tissue. “I think I’ve found the murder weapon.”

The Doctor confirmed his find with a nod. "Are there any more of them about?"

Nigel and Lynn fanned out to search. Alex stood by the body. "Can't do anything for him now," the Doctor said, gently. She ran several snarky retorts through her head, but her heart wasn't in it.

"Two more over here," Nigel shouted. The Doctor ran over to where Nigel and Lynn had found the other bodies. Alex stayed with the first. There were things you were supposed to do for dead people. Close their eyes. She wasn't sure this one had ever had eyes. Cover them up. She emptied the clams out of the half-spilled sack by the creature’s side and covered its head. Pray for them, she supposed. In her own faith, praying more about listening than talking anyway, so she settled for keeping silence for whatever soul such a person might have had.

Lynn came back to collect her. "We should all stay together," she said. Alex followed without enthusiasm, still dragging herself along the wall. She looked down at Alex's feet, frowning. "Why aren't you wearing shoes?"

Alex didn't feel like answering. She adjusted her stride so they were walking a bit farther apart.

Lynn moved back closer. "Don't wander away from the group."

"Don't tell me what to do," she snapped back. "You're not my mother."

"Young lady, I don't know what is going on between you and your guardian, but this is not the time to throw a tantrum." She had that tone of voice adults use when they're trying to yell and whisper at the same time.

She was right, of course, but Alex wasn't ready to concede the point just yet. She really wanted to kick something. Too bad about the shoes. Gross miscalculation, there, expecting him to notice, or care, that she'd never put her shoes back on. She slowed to match pace with the woman. "Sorry. I'm just being stupid," she said, without much conviction.

They rounded a corner. Here, there were lights recessed into tunnel walls, casting a dim light on the four of them. They walked into the lit tunnel a few paces, then another sound, a soft snick, interrupted their footsteps. They all stood, stock still. "Sh--sh--sh," the Doctor warned, holding up a hand for emphasis. There were some people blobs up ahead, Alex wasn’t sure how many.

"Stop there!" The voice spoke a version of English composed entirely of bubbles, or so it sounded. Alex froze. Two creatures like the dead one she had just seen were blocking the corridor, with unfamiliar objects in their hands that Alex would just bet weren't for making friends.

"Guns, really?" The Doctor complained, holding his hands palms outward, but low, near his waist. Nigel and Lynn copied him. Alex raised her hands over her head and tried to look nonthreatening. The Doctor continued his reassuring patter. "I'm the Doctor, and this is Nigel, Lynn, and Alex. We're here to help."

"Monsters!" one of them bubbled, their gun shaking in their hand. The Doctor slowly, carefully shifted position to transpose himself between the terrified octopus person and Alex, glowing so brightly that she took an involuntary step backward. "They're the ones who've been killing the harvesters!" Alex held still and tried to make herself small. The creatures’ eyes were as big as her hands and sat very low on their wrinkled, purplish heads, which was probably why she hadn’t found them on the dead body. She wasn't quite sure where they kept their mouths, but they seemed to speak from a sort of fleshy spout on the side of their necks. 

"We'll come with you quietly," the Doctor said, "We're here to help, after all." He was all shining with charm and reassurance, and the shaky one did start to respond, lowering the gun. 

"We have no reason to believe you," bubbled the other. They turned toward the Doctor and the three humans. "We'll hold them in the records room until Maran gets back." They gestured with their weapon. The Doctor and the humans followed. Alex tried to look meek and nonthreatening while she sorted through hypotheses in her head as to why these creatures spoke English. The one who appeared to be in charge pulled a device out of their belt and held it to their speaking spout, their siphon maybe? "Garrimon here. We've found something down in the wash tunnels you need to see." Pause. "Defies description." Pause. "Just meet us by the records room. Look, very busy, out."

"We should put them in the lockup," The nervous one said.

The one who seemed to be charge made a noise suspiciously like a snort. "What, with the chewers?"

"Serves them right for getting intoxicated during work hours." The nervous one kept fiddling with their weapon.

Garrimon poked them with an upper tentacle, about where their shoulders ought to have been. "Serves them right, what? Getting their brains eaten by alien monsters?"

"I don't eat brains," the Doctor volunteered, helpfully.

"I don't eat meat. Or brains either, I mean." Alex said.

The Doctor looked over at her in surprise. "Don't you really?"

Alex pulled a face. "No." She wondered if he had a problem with that. 

"We don't eat brains either." Nigel supplied, gesturing to Lynn.

"So you say," said Garrimon. "Follow us." The two moved sideways down the tunnel, each keeping one of their great, swiveling eyes trained on them. The lithe slither of their steps was surprisingly quick and graceful. She supposed that was because they weren't actors in rubber suits. The Doctor walked after them, chatting, followed by everyone else.

Alex contrived to walk next to him for just a moment. "Isn't it kind of weird that they speak English?" she said.

"The TARDIS is translating for you. Them too," he gestured in the direction of Lynn and Nigel. "Hey, have you noticed they don't use gender pronouns? I wonder if they're hermaphrodites. Not that you should ask, it's probably rude."

Two more octopus people, these dressed in paler jumpers with more elaborate stitching, met them at the junction with a narrower tunnel. They took one look at the Doctor and his company and leapt back, one of them reaching for a weapon. Alex stepped backward to lean against the damp stone wall. Seven people, including the Doctor at his shiniest and four other jarringly weird aliens, pressed in on her. The shield she practiced wasn’t good enough, too much was getting through it. She was sure they were all saying something important, but the words were jumbling together. She started to slide backwards down the tunnel, trying to get a few more feet of distance between herself and the knot of people.

"Stop!" bubbled an octopus. They shoved their way toward her. She backed away.

"I'll follow you, just give me a little space, OK?" she said.  
They looked at her critically with one of their great eyes. She stared at the floor. The octopus twisted the space around it differently than humans or Time Lords did. She needed something else to think about..."George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe," she started to recite, glad for once that she'd been required to commit the Presidents to memory.

The octopus stepped back. Alex breathed out her relief. "Thanks," she told it.

"You're a little creature. Are you a child?"

"Yes." She tried to look small and harmless. Cute was probably a stretch. She probably looked as grotesque to them as they did to her.

"I frighten you."

Alex nodded. When she looked up, the others had all moved on ahead. "Follow me. I will not use my weapon. I have my own little one."

She was a little annoyed at being talked down to, but that seemed like a small complaint, under the circumstances. They trailed along behind. "Bren," the octopus said.

"What?"

"That's my little one. Bren. Likes to build things and take them apart. None of my equipment is safe." It slithered along next to Alex, all slick and glistening with huge, pupilless eyes and suckered tentacles that divided into three fingerlike projections at the tips. "They like to run with a pack of squirts about the tunnels all day, getting into trouble, but since the attacks, we've had to keep all the children home."

The thing sure liked to chatter, didn't they? Alex nodded politely, then realized nodding might not be polite, nor smiling, so she just said, "Bet he's bored."

"Complains about it all the time. Hey, how about I just take you back to my place? They're certainly not going to want to question you, not a child, and Bren could use the company."

Seriously? "No, I think I should stay with my own species for now. Maybe later."

"Suit yourself. You want to spend the afternoon in lockup with a bunch of chewers, you can I suppose." Ahead of them, the Doctor, Nigel, and Lynn were being prodded through a door. "They probably wouldn't let me take you anyway."

No, probably not, Alex thought, wondering exactly how this person had managed to rise to a position of responsibility. They reached the doorway. The lockup was a cramped room, with four cells, two against each wall. Three cells were empty. One contained an octopus person "Maybe I will just go with you," she said. Garrimon directed Nigel and Lynn into an empty cell.

"So, are your murder victims actually missing their brains?" the Doctor was asking. "I'm telling you, I've seen these sorts of things before," she could hear the Doctor's voice wheedling from inside the lockup and see his aura through the wall. He got brighter when he was trying to get his way. She wondered if he was influencing them on purpose, and if so, whether that was especially ethical. "Just let me have a look around and maybe we can solve this before anyone else gets killed!" he finished, urgency sharpening his voice.

A new voice bubbled in defeat. "Fine. But you'll have an escort. And the rest of you will have to stay in lockup where I can keep an eye on you. Emel! Emel, bring the small one in here."

"I'm going to take it back to my rooms. It's only a child."

"Don't be an idiot, Emel."

Alex skipped forward before she could be pushed. Nigel and Lynn were already inside one of the clear walled cells, sitting awkwardly in bowl shaped chairs. "In here with them," the new octopus person said not unkindly, moving back to let her pass.

She stepped into the cell and perched on the edge of an elongated bowl covered with what looked a little like foam rubber, slick surfaced, but cracked in places. In the cell across from them the only other prisoner lay curled in a similar bowl, asleep or unconscious. Alex lay back on the cool surface and covered her face with her hands. She counted Nigel and Lynn, their octopus guard, the sleeping octopus, and somebody, felt like octopus, in a room that shared a wall with their cell. Five shouldn't be too bad. She imagined the shield into place again. It kept disappearing every time she got distracted. Setting it back up all the time was getting tedious. She hoped that someday she wouldn't have to worry about it, that it would be as natural as remembering how to walk.

"You all right?" It was Nigel.

Alex sat up. "I'm OK." Lynn was facing away from them, digging around in her bag. Alex was more and more impressed all the time with the quality of security in this establishment. They hadn't even confiscated Lynn’s giant backpack? She turned to Nigel Marven. "I'm sorry, Dr. Marven. I mean about before. I'm kind of an idiot."

Nigel pressed on. "It's Nigel. You still all in a twist about earlier?"

She hunched her shoulders, defensive. "Guess so."

"What's going on between you and the Doctor?"

Alex picked idly at the cracks in the bowl bed. "Nothing."

"I'm not buying it," Nigel said.

She tore out a tiny chunk of foam rubber, rolled it between her hands. "This time last week I had less than a month to live. I mean live as a person. I had a long career as a vegetable ahead of me. Then he shows up like some knight in shiny armor...no, more like Gabriel the Archangel, and my mom practically shoves me out the door with him. I mean, he knows everything about practically everything and he’s supposed to be saving the universe all the time and I’m just...me." She threw the tiny ball on the floor. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do." She flung herself backward in the bowl chair theatrically. "My life is ridiculous."

Nigel started humming tunelessly for a moment. "We've been falsely accused of murder by sapient octopode farmers in the Carboniferous. Ridiculous doesn't begin to describe the situation." He paused, humming again. "You know, I think we may have drifted offshore in the TARDIS. Which would make us under the sea." He bobbed his head to imaginary music and smirked. "I'd like to be," he sang, in a slightly strangled voice, "under the sea, in an octopus's garden, in the shade..." Alex and Lynn stifled giggles. "Well, it is quite a coincidence, isn't it?"

Lynn groaned.

An octopus wearing a yellow jumper burst into the lockup. "Emel has just been to their rooms. Bren is missing. We think they may have gone exploring."

"Are any of the other children missing?" The guard leapt up, grabbed their weapon, and headed for the door.

"We're calling all of the other parents to be sure. You're not just going to leave them, are you?" Yellow jumper asked, indicating the prisoners with one upper tentacle.

"Has the one called the Doctor been behaving itself?"

"It has completely taken over the investigation, deputized a couple of assistants from the staff, and Ocean, that creature never stops talking. But it hasn't strangled anybody yet."

"Right. Then we'll just leave this lot here unless it asks for them. Assign Emel to watch them, that will keep them from running off on their own to look for their child." Their only guard closed the door behind it, and the three of them were alone in lockup. Not counting the comatose drunk...er, chewer.

Nigel watched them go. "Gabriel the Archangel, really? I always thought of him more as Gandalf."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, the beginnings of a plot! Though it might be easy to miss with all the snark and sulking.


	5. Treading Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Circumstances separate Alex from Nigel and Lynn, but she finds an ally to help her find her way.

Quagmire, Part 3

Emel's arrival was not forthcoming. After a couple of minutes, Nigel stood up and unceremoniously opened the door. "The Doctor fixed the lock before he left. Shall we go make ourselves useful, Lynn?"

Lynn stood to follow him. Alex hopped off the bed to join them, but Lynn shook her head. "You stay here where it's safe."

Alex sat back down. "I don't think here's any safer." 

"For you it is. Stay here. We're just going to check things out, then we'll be right back." The two of them left. 

Alex flopped back on the bowl chair, alone now except for the sleeping chewer and the creature in the next room, who for all practical purposes didn't count. She felt...old. Like she weighed a thousand pounds. Sometimes she felt like she wasn't herself anymore. The old Alex, the one who was up at dawn to climb the tallest tree in the park, the one who could read for hours without getting tired, the one who would talk to anyone, about anything, for as long as they would listen...she was dead. She didn't much care for the timid, brittle new Alex. She counted people lights. Auras. One, two (asleep), three. A few more indistinct smudges in the distance. There was a fourth octopus in the next room, but it was wrong. Knotted. Enraged. She sat up. The other one, the reddish one, was throwing panic-sparks. Her own heart raced in involuntary empathy. The door to her cell was still ajar. She slid off the bowl chair, then out the door, glad that her bare feet made no sound on the concrete floor. She tiptoed into the hallway and froze.

One of the octopus people was on top of the other. They were struggling, but the victim was rapidly losing the ability to fight back as the attacker landed blows on them with some metal tool that she couldn't immediately identify. She was too small to help. There was nothing she could do...except maybe distract it. She pressed both hands to her ears, took a giant breath, and screamed. And again.

The attacker paused in their bludgeoning of the other octopus person to turn one giant eye on her. Time to run.

She could hear them behind her, gaining, then there was a series of pops loud enough to hurt her ears, followed by a heavy, wet thump and a sudden, painful explosion behind her eyes, like a flashbulb going off inside her head. She turned around, stared at the body on the floor for two or three stunned breaths, and kept running until her body made her stop, which wasn't far. She ducked around a corner and crouched there, breathing hard, darkness swimming in front of her eyes.

"Child?"

She looked up. It was certainly somebody. No idea who. Couldn't tell them apart, not if she tried. She figured the differences between humans and sapient octopodes were enough to excuse her from any accusations of racism...speciesism? She hazarded a guess. "Emel?"

"Can you walk?" They had gotten shorter, the lower tentacles curled round themselves in a wide spiral. Sitting.

"Did you find Bren?" she asked, pulling herself to her feet.

“No,” Emel said. "The Doctor found an infection in the chewing fungus. It causes the chewers to go mad. Everyone is looking for Bren and the other two children.” Their eyes swiveled to check up and down the hallway. "It's not safe here."

"Did the one who was shot survive?" She thought she knew the answer.

"No."

"What about the other one? They were alive when I left them. Are they going to be all right?"

"No. I'm sorry, child."

Her eyes prickled. She wiped the tears with her sleeve and sniffled. She felt Emel moving in to hold her, like a mother...like a parent. It was hard not to think of Emel as female. She jerked away. "Don't touch me!" she warned.

Emel moved back. "You are a funny looking little thing. I must seem disgusting to your eyes." But their feelings were hurt, she could hear it in their voice, feel it prickling on her skin. The more time she spent around these octopus people, the more she picked up of their emotions.

"It's not that. You look like you're supposed to look. I just can't touch people."

"Ever?"

"Pretty much."

"You poor child." Alex stifled an eye roll, though she had to admit she'd been having her own pity party not ten minutes before. "Do you have a contagious disease?"

"No. I'm not sure what I have would translate into your language." She didn't want to take the chance that it would. Witch burning couldn't be an exclusively human phenomenon. Besides, it was embarrassing. "Can I help you find Bren?" 

"I'm not supposed to be looking for Bren."

"I know. Where haven't you tried yet?" She followed Emel down the deserted hallway and through a door into a much less well maintained tunnel. Luminescent mold gleamed on the walls in the dim light. 

"I think the children are following the Doctor and his team." Emel flicked on a flashlight that was so dim Alex wondered why it bothered. "This way." They led the way down twisting tunnels, stopping at sounds that apparently were unusual, while ignoring others Alex thought were much more suspicious. Emel lived here, so they probably knew what these tunnels were supposed to sound like. Alex could barely see. 

Somebody else was bending space behind them. "Emel, someone's following us," she said.

"I don't hear anything." Emel said, though they quickened their pace.

"Maybe I hear better than you," she suggested. "They can't be far. Four meters, tops." 

Emel pressed themself into one of the round hatchways that lined the walls. There wasn't enough room for Alex to squeeze in, not with her generous personal space requirements. Emel's tentacles twitched. One wrapped around a handle sticking out of the hatch. "Could it be Bren and his friends?"

The two octopodes, sensed rather than seen, burned with hunger and rage. "I hope not," Alex said.

The two murderous octopodes sped up, their liquid movements making soft swooshing sounds against the floor. Emel wrenched down on the handle she was holding. The hatch opened a crack. Warm, green smelling wind blew over the two of them. Emel rolled her body out of the hatchway and into the hall. "Jump, now," it said.

Alex jumped into blackness, holding her breath on a hunch. After a long moment of falling, she splashed into deep, still water. There was a faint circle of light above her. Emel's body dangled, silhouetted against the dim light, working the hatch closed, then followed Alex into the water.

They swam over next to where Alex waited, treading water. "Now, we'll dive down and take the flooded tunnels to the central garden."

Alex ducked down underwater to flip her hair out of her eyes, then wiped the brackish liquid off her lips with the back of her hand. "I can't do that. I need to breathe."

"The water doesn't smell very nice, but it's adequately oxygenated," Emel protested.

"I only breathe air."

"Oh." A brief, uncomfortable silence followed. "You have any more physiological quirks you'd like to share before I accidentally kill you?"

"Only that...can you see down here?"

"There's not much light, but yes."

"I can't."

"Right, I'll keep that in mind, then." Emel swam in a large circle around what Alex assumed was the perimeter of the pond. 

"Are you looking for an above-water way out?" she asked.

"I thought you couldn't see anything."

"I can see you. You're alive."

"What does that have to do with whether you can see me?” They paused, possibly moving around some obstacle in the dark, then continued, “Well, I suppose if I don't find a way out for us, you'll have all the time you need to explain. Aha!" There was the sound of another hatch opening. "This one's only half full of water. You'll still have to swim, but you'll be able to breathe."

Alex swam toward Emel, then felt along the wall until she found the round opening, just above the water line. "I can do it myself," she said, waving off assistance to haul herself over the lip of the hatch and into the cross tunnel. Emel swarmed up after her, more graceful in water than on land. The skintight jumpsuits made sense now. Their clothing had to be practical for both water and land. The water was up to her chest. She swam forward, still blind, kicking off from the floor every few strokes.

They took several turns into side tunnels, enough that Alex became thoroughly turned around, when she had to call Emel to a halt again. "More people," she said. "Three. Other side of this hatch."

"Now I know I don't hear anything."

"They're being quiet. I'm pretty sure they're scared." Pretty sure was an understatement. Her own heart was racing in sympathetic response.

Emel swam past her. "Back up to that last hatch." Alex felt her way backward. "If anything happens to me, you go through and close the hatch behind you."

Emel opened the hatch. Light poured in, and piercing whistles filled the air. Alex covered her ears. The shrieks died down after a moment. "Bren, Dloon, Amer! What are you doing down here?" Emel chastised the three children, all the while wrapping them up in their tentacles and squeezing each in turn. Alex was worried for a moment that they would all get knotted together, but they managed to organize themselves. "You might never have been found. I would have swum right past you!" they said.

"There’s a thing behind you!" shrieked one of the children with renewed panic.

"Hi," Alex said. "I'm a friendly monster."

"It helped me find you, loves." Emel ushered the other children into a line along one wall. "All right then, what happened?" they prompted. The children all spoke at once, predictably. Emel stopped them. "Just Amer, they’re the oldest."

"We heard there were aliens, so we went to see if we could find them. Then Dom Galn started chasing us, and we thought they were mad because we were supposed to be in our rooms, so we ran. And then this alien monster attacked Dom Galn with a flashlight,"

"It was blue," another child interjected.

"It was not, it was brownish, like that one," Amer corrected, pointing at Alex.

"The flashlight was blue, Amer.”

Amer pointedly ignored the critique and continued, “So we ran down to the flooded tunnels and then we got lost." 

Emel stroked each one in turn, getting their attention. "All right, now we are all going to calm down and get back home. Some of our own people have gotten very sick and are hurting people."

"Killing people, you mean," interrupted one.

"Yes, Bren, killing people. We think we know what's wrong, now, so it's going to be fine, but for right now, we all need to stick together and no wandering off." Three heads wobbled in a gesture Alex assumed meant agreement. "That means you too, little alien."

"I'm not going anywhere without you. I can't see down here."

"Bren, Droon, Amer, Aled...I'm sorry dear, I can't pronounce your name, all together now, and quiet, just in case." They lined up, Alex taking the rear, and sloshed their way down the tunnel until it began sloping upward and growing more shallow. There was a mechanical thunk, followed by a rushing sound in the distance. Emer paused.

"Collection sump, everyone hang on and be ready to switch to gill breathing." The other children wrapped tentacles around handholds spaced along the walls. 

Alex grabbed a handhold with both hands. "I don't have gills," she reminded Emel, bleakly.

"Those little handling tentacles of yours won't hold up to the current either. Come here. Quickly."

"I told you, I can't." The rushing was getting louder, closer.

"If you don't come here, right now, you'll be bashed unconscious against the walls when the backwash fills this tunnel, and then you'll drown. What could be worse than that?"

Alex waded toward Emel, desperately imagining her shield as a thick, muffling blanket, wrapping it around herself, layer upon layer. It was a little easier to tell what she was doing with four other minds to test it against...she could feel the shield holding them out. For a moment, the water drew away, swirling around her ankles. Emel snatched her up with two thick tentacles, folding her in tight against her rubbery jumpsuit. Alex cowered inside her own head, battered by rushing water and disorganized fragments of color, pattern, and sound. This was when she usually broke, the foreign patterns rolling over her, blotting her out, leaving her unable to move, or think, or exist. "George Washington," she squeaked. Water filled her mouth and nose, choking off her voice. She thought the rest of them, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, air, air, she thought, the shield eroding as hypoxia started to overwhelm her. She was dragged forward, then, suddenly, released.

She sat on the floor, up to her midsection in the remaining flow, coughing up brackish water. She felt like she sat there a long time, able to concentrate only on not lying down, blinded by the lack of oxygen. Her lungs burned. Finally, she looked up, feeling simultaneously sick and strangely elated. "I did it!" she tried to shout, but her voice wasn't working yet, and the attempt sent her into another coughing fit. Emel stood nearby, worrying at her. Alex waved her arms in a helpless gesture she hoped looked apologetic. A few more breaths, and she found her voice. "I'm OK," she said, more quietly, trying to spare her abraded throat. "Are you all right?"

Emel shifted its stance slightly. "Fine," she said, wryly. "Why shouldn't I be?"

"You didn't get dizzy or anything?"

"I don’t know. Perhaps. Sometimes I imagine things. You're a funny little fish aren't you?" She paused, taking in the curve of Alex’s spine where her tunic had torn partway off. "You are a fish! Modified almost beyond recognition, but a fish!"

"I'm not a fish. Are you an octopus?"

"Well, no, but...same evolutionary branch. You had distant ancestors who were fish, am I right?" 

Now that she thought about it..."Actually, yes."

Emel looked up and down the hallway again. "Can you walk yet?"

"Yeah." She got up to wade alongside the octopodes, using the wall to help her balance, stopping to cough every few steps. 

Emel found a dry room with only one door and herded them all inside to await an escort home. It pulled out its phone equivalent. "This is Emel. I have Bren, Amer, Droon and the little alien with me. There are at least two infected up in tunnel 24." There was a pause while she was questioned.

"The squirts are fine. The alien child is an obligate air breather, came close to drowning in backwash. It's conscious and breathing, but I do not like the way it sounds." There was another pause.

"Yes, yes, it's fine. We're all fine. Tunnel 9, near the second outflow port. I think we're in Drinn's office."

She cut the connection. "We're going to wait here," she told the assembled children.

Alex found that, as time passed, she had to spend more and more of her attention on breathing. It was a short wait, fortunately. Footsteps pounded down the hallway outside, at a run. Must be the Doctor. Did he run everywhere? The door opened on the Doctor, looking all worried again, and an octopus person she didn't recognize. "Right, then, problem solved, back to the TARDIS."

He knelt down in front of her and waved his blue flashlight thing over her. "You, my dear, are hypoxic. Have to get you back to the TARDIS, get the residual salt water out of your lungs."

"Emel held me down so I wouldn't get washed away," she said.

"Thank you, Emel," the Doctor said to it. He moved to pick Alex up. Emel curled a tentacle around his arm to stop him.

"It's all right, Emel, the Doctor's different. He’s...like me." She got to her feet. "I can walk," she protested to the Doctor, uncertain whether that was in fact true.

"But you shouldn't." He scooped her up easily.

Alex tried again. "Emel held me down for at least a minute."

"Did she? It's good that you're not heavy." He kept walking. Nigel and Lynn caught up with them. 

"Emel held me down for a whole minute and I recited the Presidents of the United States and... I'm. Just. Fine." Then she had a coughing fit hard enough to almost make her black out.

"Except for the drowning."

"Whatever," she snipped. She thought he might be teasing her. He couldn't possibly be as dense as he pretended to be.

The four of them rounded the corner to where the TARDIS sat on its ledge. The Doctor set Alex down on the control room floor and took them all on a short hop back to the surface. She was almost too exhausted to say goodbye to Nigel and Lynn, and blacked out while they were rummaging around for the winch.

 

When she woke, she was lying in the infirmary swaddled in blankets, and her chest didn't hurt anymore. The Doctor was perched on a chair near her bed, reading. He set his book down by her bed. "You did well today," he said. "I heard about you trying to save that clerk."

"I didn't save him, though." In all the confusion and the running and the nearly drowning, she'd almost forgotten.

"You don't win every time. Trying counts for something. And you found someone trustworthy and intelligent to help you. Don't knock that. It's an important skill, I ought to know. Oh, and reciting, to augment your shield, that really was clever. Where did you get the idea?"

"A Wrinkle in Time, of course." She paused. "Can I ask a stupid question?"

"No such thing."

"How come when somebody touches me I get so swallowed up in them I can't even think, but they don't even notice?"

He thought for a moment. "See, not a stupid question at all. A complicated question, though. First off, you're not shifting into their frame of reference, so all either of you perceive is untranslated static and emotion. You get hit with a lot more static than they do."

That was clear as mud. "But they have to notice something, don't they?"

"People see what they expect to see. Like the TARDIS. I can park it anywhere and most people don't even see it. Some of that's the perception filter, but even perception filters work on the natural tendency people have to ignore what doesn't seem important at the time."

He left the e-book reader next to her bed. "You can sleep or read, but don't go running around. I'll be up in the control room if you need me." And just like that, he was gone again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Female companions scream a lot. I wanted to pay homage to that idea, but subvert it a little.


End file.
